Liberty Mutual "Right Track"
 

Owners of the twins that think their cars are slow obviously haven't talked to the people of Liberty Mutual Insurance. I just insured all of my cars with them a couple of months ago. They offer a program called "right track" whereby they have you plug a device into your OBD port and they track your driving habits. I know, it seems like big government watching over you. However, they give a 5% discount for signing up, the final discount (done for each car independently) can range from 5%-30%, and the best part is that regardless of your driving style, your rates will not be increased as a result of the 90-day test period and once you earn your discount, it stays with you as long as you own the car. The program only measures 4 metrics:


1. Time spent driving between 12am and 4am--I guess they have a lot of claims occurring during those hours (I wonder why)
2. Total miles driven--I guess to determine if you are driving within the mileage you claimed when you signed up
3. "Rapid" acceleration events--measured by the rate of acceleration measures over a period of time as short as 1 second.
4. Hard braking events--rate of deceleration measured over a period of time as short as 1 second.


There is a website you can sign onto that tracks your progress. 15 minutes after you shut the car off you can see your history of trips and events that they have identified. The biggest problem I have having with the BRZ is that the threshold for triggering an event of rapid acceleration is only about 7-7.5mph/second. Nearly all of my events are from start in 1st gear. When you are driving a car with a short 1st gear and low torque, you usually start up pretty quickly. Next time you pull away in 1st gear, watch how quickly you get up to 15 mph. If you did it in 2 seconds or less, you just lost some of your potential discount. The only way I've figured to drive this car without triggering an event is to shift into second after just barely getting started. The combination of shift time and less pull in second gear will take long enough to not trip the program.


The "hard braking" event is also frustrating. If you are driving along at normal speeds at or below the speed limit and the light turns yellow but in time for you to stop, you will get a braking event if you stop for it. Seems counter intuitive as the alternative is to go through an intersection when the light is turning red. This is supposed to measure safe driving habits, right?


I can't wait for the 90-day period to be over. I'm doing a lot better on my other car than on the BRZ because of the rapid acceleration issue above. I will probably end up with about an additional 15% discount as a result of signing up, which is not too shabby. I just wanted to warn anyone thinking about trying this that it can be frustrating.

I would end up with a 15% surcharge, given my driving habits.

They would cancel my insurance if had one of those.

It sounds like it's going to turn you into a driver that will piss everyone else off if you really let it dictate the way you drive.

You're not far off with this statement. More importantly, you can't control how other people drive. If the person in front of you brakes hard for some reason and you are following at a normal and safe distance, you will have to brake hard to keep from hitting them. This happens more than you think.


there are two takeaways that I've concluded on this program.

1. There is no way anyone that drives around traffic can go though the program without events that cut into the discount. They know this and it seems that they want all of the discounts to end up around 12-17%. My wife has over twice as many events as I do and her discount is only about 3 points below mine.
2. They won't cancel your policy or raise your rate regardless of the outcome. However, I did wait until after my HPDE before beginning the program. I didn't think starting out with about 500 events the first day was a good idea. Besides, I won't be driving the BRZ much when the snow hits.

I went through Progressive's similar 'Snapshot' program and the hard braking even was insanely touchy. Like you barely touched the brakes and it would set it off. And like you said, stopping for a yellow light was a sure fire way for it to send 1-4 seperate events for some reason. God that thing hated me. Luckily the way progressive does it is they send you the device, and after your first month they give you an 'initial' discount, then after 6 months they give you your 'permenant' one. The first one they send me was defective and wasn't uploading info to them correctly so I got 30% off for my first 6 months. After the 6 months though I only got 3% off because I apparently didn't run enough yellow/red lights for them.

I personally wish Liberty Mutual would go out of business and straight to hell so I'd never have to see another shitty moron driver who doesn't understand how insurance works using the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop to accuse me of idiotic things I haven't done. "You wrecked your brand new car." No I didn't. Fuck off.

It probably doesn't help that we have relatively stiff suspensions. I bet, for example, my Highlander under normal braking for a yellow light at 200 ft out will more easily spread the forward kinetic energy with the extra 4" or whatever the suspension lets the chassis move forward. Th twin's suspension probably lets our chassis move forward about 1", a huge difference.

I will never let my insurance company stick one of these "minders" in any of my cars. They make it seem like a good idea by offering discounts now...but wait a few years and they will figure out a way to make it mandatory and use it as a way to give people tickets and make more money off their customers.
I know that seems a little tin foil hat-ish...but you have to remember...They are in business to make money. Insurance is basically legalized gambling, only you as the payee ALWAYS loose.

If we really want safe "drivers" then self driving cars need to become a thing on public roads. Take the human driver out of the equation and you'll be amazed at how well traffic will flow...

Not tin foil hat, just have to look at all the scams ISP and phone companies pull. Western business practices are terribly short sighted right now, we will be digging ourselves out of this hole for my entire lifetime, I just hope the vast majority recognizes the hole before I have kids.

I wish I could share that hope. I see people so blindly wrapped up in themselves that they can't be bothered to think about anyone else, let alone five minutes into the future. I know every generation says this...but it's a sad time to be alive. The wilful ignorance that the vast majority of people display is truly frightening.

Anyway, I think we are going to get to a point where self driving cars will be the only way we "drive" and that in theory should negate the need for collision insurance.

Self driving cars will be off the road the day horse and buggies are kicked off the road, they were obsolete 100 years ago and truly unnecessary 50+ years ago and yet here's a picture from a horse and buggy crashing into a truck from a few months back:

http://thedailynews.cc/wp-content/up...6790369130.jpg

http://thedailynews.cc/2015/03/26/am...uggy-accident/

Back to the Liberty Mutual people...

Did you name your car "Brad"?

OP, I actually wanted to put one of these devices in AND THEN go to some track days haha

But I'm waiting for the outcome for several tickets that will surely increase my premiums already so I thought I'd do best not starting trouble

I'm all for a self driving car so I can drink and passenger. As long as they don't outlaw people driving.

I'm sure they have acceptable levels of brake slamming and increased acceleration thresholds to account for incidents you cannot control that happen in day to day traffic.

I work in the auto insurance industry (not for Liberty Mutual) and it is only a method to refine your rate based on you and how you drive, instead of considering everyone as the same type of driver. Before tools like this existed, you could only be rated on your age/sex/marital status/location and prior tickets and claims that you had. So every driver is basically given the same rate if they have matching criteria, while one of them could be a much higher risk than the other and likewise should pay more.

Who this will benefit is the average soccer mom or soccer dad who is a patient & careful driver who doesn't drive a lot and doesn't drive in areas known for accidents. With the market getting so competitive, additional personalized metrics are needed to get someone the exact rate that they deserve.

It's funny you mention this. I started my BRZ 3 weeks after my other two cars for that very reason. I had a "high speed touring" day on a 1.8 road course track here in Oklahoma and I knew if I had this thing in during a track day that I would have 300 events in one day and would eliminate any ability to get further discounts. So I waited until after this day to put the device in.

Thought about putting one of these devices in my car for the discount Progressive offers.

However the monthly weekend drives that I do with a local car enthusiast group + my buds on occasion made me think twice.

The smart geniuses at LM are not monitoring me when they decided to not renew my home ins. Supposedly, 'new tech' insights says my house is located in a brush fire danger area that is not compatible with LM's risk assessment. So I promptly took my auto ins from them and overall has a lower home, auto ins bill as well.

I have paid LM $33k+ in home ins premium over 19 yrs plus $?k in auto ins premiums with 0.0 claims in at least the last 10 years. There have not been a brush fire within miles of where I am in the last 30+ years.

As a lifer in the IT world, using tech alone without the human intervention is pure stupidity. Perhaps one needs to look at rear-end accidents caused by slow drivers or drivers neglecting to accelerate appropriately.

My mom put a progressive monitor in her camry for awhile. Because it would beep at her even during a normal braking situation, she changed her braking habits and instead it made her driving way more erratic, shes now pumping the brakes way earlier than her intended stop. It probably drives people crazy if they get behind her car.

No thanks I don't need a leash.

Plus being an "old timer" my ins isn't that much anyway.

You loved Brad. Then you totaled him.

I always saw these as a way to monitor you initially for a discount, track your driving habits, and then deny you in the future if something happened even remotely linked to your driving happened.


Even if it was ever offered I wouldn't want a snapshot of my personal driving habits on file. Its just like your cars "black box" that allow them to see the last few seconds of driving if you have an accident or warranty claim.


Not to say its a bad thing or not necessary in some instances, just that I personally want as little on file as possible.

I figured that for a period of 90 days in the late fall and winter, I could probably change my driving habits and drive like grandma. At least I'll some get credit for doing it. Unfortunately, the wife doesn't subscribe to that theory and she has accumulated over twice as many braking and acceleration events as I have. I'm half way though and can't wait for it to be over.

ok so i had one of these in my BRZ for accident forgiveness with Safeco. The odb2 unit never made any noises at me or indicated an event occured. i'd have to wait for the unit to submit data so i could see it online. Now just like the OP it records the same things. On average i'd drive 300-400 miles per week and average 5-10 events in a week. the worst was 19 events in a week where i drove 900 miles. My driver rating never went lower than 4/5 and at the end of my 126 days, finished with a driving score of 4.85/5.

I did not alter my driving habbits other than a bit slower start out of first, i continued to enjoy back road spirited drives @soulreapersteve ;) and the two odd weekends i knew i was going to speed i took the odb2 reader out. if the insurance company complained i was going to say i brought the car into the shop to do repairs and they had to remove the unit to do diagnostics.

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I had a chance to have a conversation with someone who works at CAA (president level) - what he told me was this:

According to regulations, insurers cannot increase our individual rates based on the data obtained from these types of OBD readers.

HOWEVER - what they can do, is use the data from a specific segment of users (i.e. any BRZ/FRS drivers who did opt-in to the program) and use that data to draw conclusions about the entire population of FRS/BRZ drivers.
As a result, even if you don't see an immediate increase in your rates as an individual, over time, the data from these readers (which will likely reveal the average FRS/BRZ driver to be a bit more aggressive on accelerating, turning, and braking) will likely lead to an adjustment of the overall rates for all drivers of those cars.

Guess which way the adjustment will probably go....

I'm not sure about the accuracy of that.. Yes I understand you said he's president level, but come on. To me, it's more fair to rate me based on my data versus rating me based on the average data. I think I drive safer/wiser than average so that wouldn't be helping me...now that I said that, it's probably because they can make more money that way since everyone drives bad.

I'm going to be one of the tech leads when my insurance company, who is also my employer, begins using these obd2 reporter devices. If I remember, I will report back what info I learn.

I was also under the belief that these devices couldn't be used to increase your personal rates, only lower them.

Like I specified in the post: they cannot use the OBD2 data to increase your personal rates.
However, they can use the data they glean to make judgments about the owner class of that car, and from there, adjust the rates for all FRS/BRZ owners with that insurer.

This allows them to say they will only lower, and never increase your personal rates based on your OBD2-logged driving habits (how else would they get people to sign on?), but lo and behold, once they have enough data to draw statistically-significant conclusions about a certain class of driver, they can use that to tweak their calculations.

Of course, that's the explanation I got, and it makes sense to me, because insurance companies are always looking for ways to more accurately gauge their risk, if only to protect themselves financially - and doing this OBD2 stuff is one way they can do that, but it only works with large enough samples.

Just wait until the day all insurance companies begin mandating this, or face steep surcharges or policy cancellations.

...and the day that the data gathering and reporting technology is built in to every new car.

I believe most new cars already have these black boxes already built in. :thumbdown: